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1. Comments are still disabled though I am thinking of enabling them again.

2. There are now several extra pages - Poetry Index, Travel, Education, Childish Things - accessible at the top of the page. They index entires before October 2013.

3. I will, in the next few weeks, be adding new pages with other indexes.

Saturday, 23 November 2013

To (Never) Put Away Childish Things: Doctor Who

I have to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Doctor's travels somehow - no self-respecting fan with a blog could do otherwise... but how?

Ah, that's the question isn't it?

I've watched a few of the tribute programs - or, to be more accurate, watched a few minutes of some of the tribute programs and discovered in all but one case that a few minutes was about all I could take. The exception was An Adventure In Space And Time - the dramatisation of the Hartnell years. It was pretty good though I thought the Matt Smith cameo was self-indulgent and pointless and the casting of Reece Shearsmith was no more than blatant and ludicrous croneyism. Still he was only onscreen for about thirty seconds and it was, all in all, a decent showing.

But what about me? How should I mark the anniversary?

I could point out that I am old enough to have watched it from the start and that, indeed, since that start I have never missed an episode (apart from the whole of The Season That Does Not Exist - some of you know the one I mean).

I could arbitrarily choose a doctor as fans are wont to do and say "this was my doctor", but I like them all. They are all "my doctor" from Hartnell to Smith.

I could choose a few favourite stories and praise them above all others but throughout the entirety of the show there have been good stories, indifferent stories and bad stories and on the whole I've enjoyed all of it.

I could search my memory for anything that is specific to me as a fan but I have never really been into the whole fandom scene and so my memories of the show are the general public's memories of the show and there are no stand out memories for me. Never did want to be a talking head for the show anyway.

I could tell you that I have been having my own private celebration for the last couple of weeks, listening to a bunch of Big Finish audios for all the various incarnations available. Some of them are very good indeed with the sixth and eighth doctors being especially well served by the audio format.

I could, I suppose, write a poem.

But I shan't do any of those things.

Instead I shall just say that I hope to live to be 106 and to repost, trembling geriatric fingers permitting, this entry on the hundredth anniversary.

I wonder who the doctor will be then. Perhaps the actor who will be playing the role has yet to even be born. I have no doubt that the show will still be around.